The Affordable Care Act Is Good News for Young Adults

Since being signed into law in 2010, the Affordable Care Act has already expanded access to high-quality, affordable health coverage for the millions of young adults who can now stay on their parent’s health insurance plans. And beginning in 2014, even more young adults will gain health care coverage through the law’s health insurance exchanges—private marketplaces where individuals can shop for health insurance—and the expansion of Medicaid.

Critics of the law ignore these facts and instead argue that the Affordable Care Act will increase health insurance premiums for young adults, especially in the nongroup, or individual, market. But our conservative estimates show that among all young adults, only about 3 percent of them might actually see a premium increase in the nongroup market—that is just 0.5 percent of all Americans.

For more on this topic, please see:

• How the Affordable Care Act Helps Young Adults by Maura Calsyn and Lindsay Rosenthal